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Wedding dress industry rakes in good money

(CRIENGLISH.com)
Updated: 2008-04-15 17:59

The market for wedding dresses is booming in Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan province, with the highest profit in a bridal dress shop or wedding planning company likely to hit 500 percent, reported Sichuan-based Chengdu Evening News on Monday.

Related readings:  Wedding budget up in Olympic Year  Wedding prices soaring: to be or not to be married?  Wedding Fair kicks off bridal season  2008: China´s "Wedding Year"

For most people, weddings not only mean a life time commitment but also a grand party that is treasured as once-in-a-lifetime experience. For every bride, wearing a perfect wedding gown is just like becoming the princess or the beautiful Cinderella.

However, the brides might not feel as comfortable as they do in the fancy dresses when they get to know what's behind the dazzling luxury.

In Chengdu, there are chances that the renting a gown is more expensive than buying one, said the newspaper.

Most Chinese people prefer to rent wedding gowns rather than buying one that you can only wear once. However, it is hard to say in Chengdu.

In the report, a bride-to-be was asked to pay 1,000 yuan ($143) as rental per day for a bridal gown from a wedding planning company in Chengdu. The lady bargained and finally rented the gown at 300 yuan, still much higher than what it would cost, which was only 200 yuan.

According to the paper, sources say the cost for about 60 percent of the wedding dresses in Chengdu is between 100-300 yuan. While better ones cost about 600-800 yuan. Maybe only a couple of rare collections that are hand made can cost 3,000 to 4,000 yuan. But many bridal gowns are rented out for 300 to 1,000 yuan per day.

In general, the price of a wedding gown depends on its fabric, styles, handcraft and accessories. A owner of a bridal gown shop in the city told the newspaper that they would sell a gown bought in at 200-300 yuan at about 1,000 yuan, quite a considerable profit margin.

Besides the price of a flattering wedding gown, the quality and style are also concerns.

Lady Chen, a local of Chengdu, found the wedding gown she had bought at an expensive price became yellow couple of months later by the time of the wedding day. She told the reporter that even that dress had been through three alternations.

As said in the reports, custom-made bridal gowns are more costly. The majority of wedding dresses available at local markets are intimations of big brands brought from Guangdong province. They may be fashionable but can hardly match in quality.

Some insiders from the wedding gown business revealed that it is difficult to tailor mimic bridal gowns and make them fit.

When it comes to style, smart businessmen in a small-scaled bridal gown shop and wedding planning company have been found to take old-fashioned bridal gowns as the latest designs to cheat their customers who don't know it very well, the newspaper reports.